Daybreak: Kennedy Saved Refusenik Baby

• A woman recalls how, when she was a desperately ill infant in the Soviet Union, Ted Kennedy saved her life by personally appealing to Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev to allow her family to emigrate to the United States. [CNN]
• The only synagogue in Latvian capital Riga will reopen this week after two years of construction. [FJC]
• Yesterday in Poland, Holocaust survivors and their families marked the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto with “low key ceremonies.” [AFP]
• Later today, Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu will talk politics with German Chancellor Angela Merkel; he’s also visited sites significant to the Holocaust, as “a visit by an Israeli leader to Germany is never limited to current events.” [AP]
• As Israeli and Palestinian leaders inch closer to resuming peace talks, President Obama plans to bring them together in person at next month’s U.N. Assembly. [Times of London]
• Also, the United States has dropped East Jerusalem from its demand for a freeze on construction in Israeli settlements. [Haaretz]